Bootstrapping Your Way to Success: Startup! A Must Read Book By Er. Santosh G

90 percent of startups fail, 42% of failed startups lack product market-fit; 29% lack of sufficient capital; 23% lack of strong team for the project and 19% suffer superior competition. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a superhero, and the world needs superheroes! Behind every success story is an embarrassing first effort, a stumble, a setback or a radical change of direction.

“Bootstrapping Your Way To Success: Startup” is a unique self-help book in that it tells you what you already know but that which you may not be consciously aware of in context to most of your business circumstances. Management does things right; leadership does the right things; Entrepreneurs smartly balance push, pull of leadership, management through systematic measure and policies.

Not only can anyone be an entrepreneur, but they must be. Even you! Not everyone should start companies, but everyone must be the entrepreneur of his or her own life. The skills people need to manage their careers are akin to the skills of entrepreneurs when they start and grow companies. For example, entrepreneurs can both be persistent on a plan and flexible when conditions change. They take intelligent risk. They build networks of allies and tap those networks for intelligence on what’s happening in the world.

“When you see someone who’s very successful, you almost imagine that it was a foregone conclusion, that they’re a genius, that they were destined for great things” says Er. Santosh G., who began the journey as an Entrepreneur in 2004, after an early setback in his own career. “I think the big takeaway is failure and setbacks, far from being uncommon, are in many ways essential.”

In 2004, Bangalore: He, being final year management student started his proprietorship firm catering software development and within 6 months his business experienced the growth with a small team of core technical and managerial competency. It easily caught the eye of next door entrepreneur, resulted in the formulation of a public limited company in association with funding partner as one of promoter cum director. But unfortunately, Association failed to sustain even for 7 months since inception on several unavoidable issues arose from managerial and technical in-capabilities of the promoters, business and revenue pressure from funding promoter in nascent. The company was shut down amid of execution of several quality projects due to financial crisis for non-cooperation from funding director. Resulting huge credit burden on him and was tough to sustain as an Individual. It was not the right selection of equity partner as well as team member. One should look for a business partner, who should understand the pros and cons of the business model and should compliment team with some valuable guidance or expertise.

“It kind of paired well with this feeling that I had of, ‘Oh my God, what do I do?’” Santosh says. And he found solace, in some ways, reading about the obstacles that famous figures had to overcome. He quickly jumped in to professional career by taking one of the job offers from IT in Bangalore and carried out his successful career in various small –medium-large IT companies. His experience as entrepreneur was well accepted and acknowledged. His last stint in corporate was with Wipro, a highly enriching IT experience from System Integration to Turn-key project handling.

Irrespective of Entrepreneurial success and failure, they manage to build personal Brand across by their commitment to continual reinvention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.

Ninety-five percent of businesses fail within the first five years. That means that 95% of the work that entrepreneurs do will vanish when the startup goes under. On the contrary, your personal brand lasts forever and does not have to fail alongside your business. I worked at three startups that have failed. All that effort I put into building out these start-ups vanished, so I had to continually start over. Not anymore though. I believe all entrepreneurs should focus on building their personal brand first, and then their business second. Why? Because your personal brand lasts a lifetime, and you significantly increase the odds of launching a successful startup when you have a reputation and followers behind you. It is never too late to start. Build your personal brand to remain alive.

In 2007, with little saving out of his professional career, He again bootstrapped his own private limited company while he continued his job in parallel to fuel his business. He was lucky enough to receive orders from MNCs on sourcing and staffing domain and the company became self-sustaining within 2.5 years of bootstrapping. Over 2.5 years business processes evolved, team structure realigned and optimized now the system is more rigid; he realized that business was rolling out without his intervention. In 2010, he discontinued his assignment with Wipro Infotech as Senior Account Manager for living his dream and passion.

His Entrepreneur, Professional and Social experience brought him an opportunity for serving Govt. of India as an Expert Member, NCVT, DGET, Ministry of Labor, New Delhi.

So whether your “Idea for Startup” can win or not, required to be judged before you venture into. The two key questions that entrepreneurs must ask themselves are the following:

Does the company have a compelling way to beat the competition on the benefits of its product that matter most to the targeted customers? (Know how the company will win the first time. )

2. Does the startup have the capabilities needed to keep delivering better value to customers as their needs change and new technologies come along? (Know how the company can keep winning)

15th August 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi began the Startup India campaign. Since then, many initiatives have been made to promote the country’s startup ecosystem: restrictions have been removed (such as the “license raj” and land permissions) and incentives have been put in place. The government further facilitates the development of start-up firms with initiatives like iMADE, an app development platform, and financial help in the form of PMMY, the MUDRA Bank. “Startup India Hub” under Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Delhi is offering single window services for Startups related information, guidelines, events, branding, incubator recognition etc.

If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good. – Bill Gates

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. – Bill Gates

Bootstrapping Your Way to Success: Startup – The Book covers few mostly shot ideas and strategies on topics not limited to

Forget Your Product: Start Selling ‘Solutions’ Instead

Customers. The #1 desire of all startups

Integrated Sales-and-Marketing (S-marketing) Strategy: Future for Small Business

Listen when your customers are talking

Critical thinking skills and Better Business Decisions. A Bad Decision is Better than No Decision At All

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